Recently, the number of media distributing various movies, such as a movie sites on the Internet, has been increasing. Additionally, there is an increasing demand for viewing movies downloaded in personal computers (PCs) from such media with large screens of televisions (TVs). Thus, opportunities for displaying operation screens of the PCs on TVs having large display screens are also increasing.
Additionally, the use of a multi-display environment has been increasing recently in which a plurality of displays connected to a personal computer (PC) is used to extend a display area.
When users want to view videos, such as programs sent from broadcasting stations, these videos are displayed on the TVs that may be utilized as the operation screens of the PCs. Since the TVs are not utilized as the operation screens of the PCs in such a case, the operation screens of the PCs have to be displayed on an auxiliary screen, such as a small monitor, to operate the PCs. Additionally, when users retrieve a movie and then show the movie to their family, the retrieval operation is not necessarily shown to all of the family. Thus, the users perform the retrieval with the auxiliary screen and then display only the movie on the TVs after finding an intended movie. When the PCs are connected to the TVs and the TVs are set to display the operation screens of the PCs thereon, the TVs connected to the PCs and the auxiliary screen are often switched between for use. That is, a multi-display environment constituted by the TV and the auxiliary screen is used. Hereinafter, a screen used as a main screen for performing operations of the PCs is referred to as a primary display, whereas a screen used as a sub screen for performing the operations of the PCs is referred to as a secondary display.
Hitherto, a technique is provided that switches between a TV screen and a PC screen displayed on a remote control in response to pressing of a screen switching button (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-96361). Additionally, a technique is provided that switches between a TV screen and a PC screen using a software key of a PC operation screen displayed on a remote control (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-40656).